Inside Your Arms
by Radiorox
Summary: 14 Years Later - A little Harm and Mac interaction when he comes back from deployment. ONE-SHOT. COMPLETE


Okay, since a bunch of people are freaking out about DJE's TV Guide article about the up and coming appearance in NCIS: Los Angeles, I am gonna post this.

A little shipper hope. I wrote this one a couple of weeks ago. It's a standalone, not meant to be part of anything really. Just one day were I hadn't had enough coffee, the office was quiet and mindless, sweet, H&M interaction happened.

It's pointless and probably saccharine sweet to a point (I am more of an angsty writer person who likes to put them in trouble) but, from time to time, I can get very shippery.

This was a product of hearing Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush" on the radio on the way home. I had always kinda liked that song although, damn it's sappy. Well, 12 year old me loved it with Keanu Reeves in the video. LOL!

There is a lyric that I love though where she goes. "Even if you're right next to me you're still too far away." And the words flew.

...

Inside Your Arms.

"You're sitting too far away from me." They were sitting on opposite ends of the sofa and her left foot was in his hands. Harm was working on massaging a kink that she usually had in the same spot, a product of the regulation heels she wore almost daily for years. He found he liked doing this for her and the soft moans she would elicit that turned him to mush. Fourteen years of marriage and her soft sounds of pleasure still lit him up like a Roman candle.

Mac raised her head from the arm of the sofa and glanced up with an impish grin. He had been back for less than twelve hours, most of which was spent in the bedroom and yet, she still wanted to be surrounded by him, all of him. "We're sitting on the same couch." He pointed out, in typical aloof, male fashion as his hand began to move upward kneading the muscles of her calves.

"I'm not in your arms." Her look turned serious and that's when he remedied the situation. Harm moved over her, his mouth seeking hers as they kissed. Often times, they were playful, fun kisses used to tease and excite. This one was desperate, all consuming and akin to drowning in someone so much that his breath caught. He kissed her again and again, eventually moving them so that Mac was stretched on top of him, head resting over his chest, his arms wrapped around her.

"How long have we been married?" She asked suddenly and when she didn't get an immediate response, Mac glanced up to find Harm with a horrified expression.

"That a trick question? Like, you ask me the type of flowers you had in your hair the day we married, or something? When I can't answer you kill me?" Harm would never understand why women did these things, ask questions that would put men on the spot.

Mac was usually good about it but, from time to time a melancholic temperament would rise in her. It was a product of her past and something that Harm had foreshadowed when Mac was reluctant to visit her father at the hospice so many years ago. That every time a man told her she was worth something, she'd push them away.

They were both fractured people in a way and if he were honest with himself, Mac taught him how to love and be in love. She showed him it was alright to feel the way he did with the encompassing emotions that made her a part of him. Harm just wished he could erase her past and ease whatever misguided feelings of self worth her parents had scarred her with.

When a smile spread across her lips, he relaxed some. "I didn't have flowers in my hair the day of our wedding."

No, she didn't. He recalled the wedding on the beach in La Jolla and the elegant cream colored dress she wore that hugged all of her curves. Mac hadn't wanted the big, sprawling military function although she requested his dress whites and gold-wings. It was beautiful and simple. Harm could never forget the look in her eyes as she stepped towards him that day.

Had she always been that beautiful? Perhaps she had but, the knowledge that she would he his and only his from that time forward spiked his male pride.

"Exactly my point. I feel like I'm being put on the spot and if I say something wrong, I'm in the dog house. And we're just shy of fourteen years."

Mac patted him on the chest and chuckled at how nervous he seemed. She didn't mean anything by the question, it was truly an innocent one. "It's not a trick question. Just making conversation."

"Okay." There was a look in her eyes that he couldn't read and he shifted them again so that Mac's back was against the sofa cushions as they lay side by side. He brought his hand up to her face, caressing over her cheeks, her eyes, his lips pressing soft kisses wherever his fingers had previously touched. "Why are you looking at me that way? What did I do wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Harm." She pressed her lips to his, hoping he would trust her words. Harm had changed somewhat when it came to admitting his feelings. He still wasn't the most romantic of guys but, it was the little things he did that still made her heart flutter. The flowers he sent her once a week while he was away. The countless emails just to 'check in' even when his days were boring and mundane. When he was home it was breakfast in bed on Sundays. Walks on the beach after their Saturday morning runs. The little adventures he would take them on - hikes in the woods, surfing in Malibu even a stupid trip to Disneyland when she discovered her Flyboy was terrified of roller coasters. In the end, she didn't need the jewelry or any grandiose expression of love, she just needed him.

"What is it then? You're starting to scare me." His concern at the moment was heartwarming and she felt cherished because of it.

"This. _Us._ It's so much more overwhelming than I could have imagined. Fourteen years is a long time." She confessed something that had been gnawing at her for months now, a peculiar feeling that settled in when she spoke with Harriet about her relationship with Bud sometime ago when the pair had finally made the move West.

The younger woman said that she had known Bud was it for her and Mac often wondered what would have happened if she and Harm had figured it out years earlier. She guessed that, in a way, she had known Harm and her would get together. But, why did it have to take so long? It would have been over twenty years of marriage had they figured it out then. Maybe it was a good thing that they went through all of the bumps and bruises, it taught them to protect what they had with much more ferocity.

"_Overwhelming_?" His panic began to rise although he did a good job at hiding it. His heart though, was hammering, echoing in his ears. Mac didn't look upset, in fact, she had a sweet smile on her lips. It was her ever expressive eyes that made him worry. "Is that a bad thing?"

"You know, time and time again I think about the first time we were together." She blushed at the thought of the first time she laid naked before him and the look in Harm's eyes as he drank in the sight of her body.

She felt the heat of his gaze, the intensity that had built for nearly a decade and had finally come to fruition. It had occurred minutes after he proposed, when he carried her to his bed and ravished her senseless. Mac had always known it would be good with him but, her expectations were met and surpassed. He branded her skin with his touch and Mac knew she would never get enough of him. He was the intrinsic piece that had been missing to make her whole.

She gave herself completely to him - body and soul - knowing that he'd been given enough ammunition to destroy her if Harm chose to. It had never been that way with past lovers and she knew it never would. Mac had always held back, trying to put a gap between sex and love knowing that the two did not need to be mutually exclusive. Harm had shattered that control, taken her over the edge. It was that intensity that scared her sometimes. He was truly the other half of her, that one person that had been put on this Earth and made exclusively for her.

Mac had never been caught up in the notion of having a soulmate. She believed it was nothing more than fodder for romance novels and Hallmark cards. It was true, for years she'd loved him, hurt for him, ached that they weren't together when it was crystal clear that they were meant to be. But, with every wall erected between them, every callused word shot across the bow, Mac had given up hope. He had too, she supposed.

Then again, that was probably why they had a supernatural kind of connection. Why he always knew where she was and how she could find him in a storm tossed sea. They were supposed to be together only both of them were too foolish to realize just how much they needed one another.

Venturing to his apartment fourteen years ago had been nothing more than a whim to air out whatever was left of them. Mac had never imagined he would have proposed or confessed his love for her. She had always accused him of not letting go but, was unprepared when he did.

All the things he couldn't say and every emotion that he felt for her Harm had affirmed in the way he made love to her. Each touch, each caress over her body shattered every reason why they should remain apart. Mac hadn't know how bereft she'd been until he claimed her. She had never forgotten that moment and was sure she never would. Every detail was seared into her memory and it made her feel closer to him when Harm was away.

And it was still like that fourteen years later - the intensity that couldn't be described with words but, she felt deep within. Perhaps it was a bit dramatic, her way of thinking but, it had dawned on her when he had returned from deployment and she wondered if it was like that for him as well. "I want you today just as much as I did before. Maybe even more. It's intense between us, at least it is for me."

_Intense._

Something about the way that the word slid from her lips made Harm desire her even more. And he understood what she meant, the overwhelming feelings that he couldn't quite measure because there were no words to describe them.

He loved her but, it was more than that. Mac made him feel complete and the months spent without her brought a permanent ache to his heart that would only abate once he returned home. He loved being on a carrier and the adrenaline that came with it. But, not even the rush of flying a supersonic jet could come close to what he felt in her arms. "You're not talking about sex are you?" That was pretty intense too, she had a way of exciting him with even a simple glance.

Mac rolled her eyes at him. "No, Harm. It's more than that."

"I think about us a lot when on deployment." He admitted with an intense glare that made Mac realize he wasn't just talking about the physical aspect of their relationship. "When my days get a little crazy, I think of you and it puts me at ease." And fourteen years later he still had to actively tell himself not to think about her.

He was glad when flight operations began as it required all of his concentration to get his people back safely. It was the moments in between that he thought of her and longed for whatever private time he was afforded to speak with her.

"And I can just as quickly annoy the hell out of you." She chuckled. Oh, they still argued, always would, she surmised it was part of their ebb and flow. But, the arguments had lessened through the years as had all of the pointless button pushing.

"And you're cute when you're mad at me. Makes me want you more, Sarah."

Mac sighed at the use of her given name, a word that he used sparsely. He had asked her once what name she preferred he used and she told him it didn't matter - to call her what he felt like when he felt like. To him she would always be 'Mac' and that suited her just fine. A name didn't define who she was to him and it didn't make him love her more or less. "It's more than just a want." He clarified between kisses to her lips and a spot on her neck that had her arching against him. "I need you."

"That's the overwhelming part. I need you too. Way too much." She held the back of his head, burying her fingers through the strands of Harm's hair when his lips and wandered between the valley of her breasts. "Harm." Mac said his name on a gasp when his tongue lapped over the lacy hem of her bra and she wondered when the hell he'd managed to get her shirt off.

Harm stopped his ministrations to look at her and the beautiful eyes that consumed him. "I'm not going anywhere, Mac. Whether I'm away six days or six months, it's you I'm coming back to. It's you I come back for." It was for her that he tried to stay out of a plane although every bone in his body ached to be behind the stick. Harm only flew when necessary out of fear of saddling her with a life like his grandmother and mother. He wouldn't do that to her. "Just one more deployment and I'm out. I swear to you."

"I'm not asking you to give it up." Although she wanted him to, Mac wouldn't verbalize it. And she didn't have to, the look in her eyes was enough for him. Harm couldn't continue to do this to her, to them. It was selfish and he realized just how much he regretted his position on the carrier the moment he stepped on board. "I've never asked you to give it up, not gonna start now."

"I know but, I don't want that life anymore and I can't…" He sighed as the words trailed off, the emotions within him running on high. Mac was a woman that rarely cried and he could count with his fingers how many times he'd wiped her tears since they've been married. She had been happy, deliriously so, he figured because he felt the same. Which meant that he had more to lose than ever before and so did she and he wanted no part in it. "I can't imagine you gone from my life. I won't recover. I won't put you in the same position that my father did with mom. It's selfish."

He had thought of it a time or two as a way to test himself, to see if he could move on like he had with Diane, Jordan and Jym. Macabre thoughts often floated through his thoughts when flight ops had a bump or two. He wondered if he would be missed and knew the answer whenever he heard her voice on the line. Harm knew, with certainty, that she would be devastated. It was evident on how broken their lives became the night before her wedding to Mic - a time when they were 'just' friends.

Their history had changed then and yet, both of them were too stubborn to read the signs and heal their broken hearts. Back then they hadn't quite been able to get a grasp on their feelings for each other. In a way, it was easier to remain adrift but, nothing came easy for them. "It scares me that I feel this way about you." Mac said, finally admitting the thoughts that had been running through her head for days. Hell, they've probably been running through her head for years.

"I'm getting dramatic, I know." She sighed when his arms tightened around her and Harm kissed the crown if her head.

"Neither us have been very good at talking about things." Two lawyers who couldn't find the words to say. The thought always amused him.

"No we haven't but, I didn't mean to sound like such a girl." Mac rolled her eyes at her thoughts and sighed deeply at the concern still in his eyes. "You don't have to worry. I'm not going anywhere either." She couldn't because part of her would be completely lost without her. "I just never thought something like this existed."

His mouth came over hers and he kissed her slowly, sweetly until a soft moan came from her lips. "Mac, I feel the same way. It is overwhelming and intense and a bunch of other things that there aren't words for. Which is probably why it took us a decade to figure it out."

"I love you, Harmon Rabb Jr."

"I love you, too, Sarah MacKenzie-Rabb."


End file.
